(Charles Mostoller/Reuters)Nearly 1 million people were not working because of opioid addiction in 2015, the latest research to show that drug use is having a profound effect on the U.S. economy. “It’s a pretty big drag on the U.S. economy,” said Ben Gitis, who co-authored the study with intern Isabel Soto. Krueger noted that areas with the highest rate of opioid prescriptions registered huge drop-offs in the number of people in the workforce. The analysis shows that more work hours were lost for women — 6.4 billion — than men, who were down 5.7 billion hours from 1999 to 2015. There were nearly 1 million people out of the workforce because of opioids in 2015.

Source: Washington Post March 27, 2018 18:15 UTC